A Gift of Love
by Ceres Wunderkind
Summary: Lyra Belacqua and her sister Elizabeth Boreal have been mortal enemies for far too long. How can they be reconciled?
1. The Death

**_Introduction_**

This story is the sixth in a sequence which began with INTENTIONS and was continued in THREADS, THE KING'S COUNCILLOR, THE CLOCKMAKER'S BOY and THE QUEEN OF THE NIGHT. I'd love it if you were to read those stories before this one because they make a continuing overall narrative when taken in order, but I will, as ever, understand it if you'd rather not. The following synopses are very compressed indeed and miss out lots of fun stuff.

New readers start here:

In _Intentions_, the Subtle Knife is restored and passes from Will Parry to Giancarlo Bellini, and we first meet Lyra's half-sister Elizabeth Boreal. Giancarlo takes the Knife to his home world of Cittagazze.

In _Threads_, it is ten years later. Will is a doctor, Lyra is an academic, and Elizabeth is the chairwoman of the powerful Boreal Foundation, which is trying to make a new Subtle Knife. Giancarlo Bellini and his adopted sister Guilietta return to Will's world. Elizabeth's accomplices Mr Greaves and Miss Morley try to take the Knife, but are foiled by Will and Giancarlo, aided by Mary Malone. Mr Greaves is killed and the Knife is finally destroyed.

In _The King's Councillor_ Lyra, now thirty-five and an established professor at Jordan Collge, is summoned to London, where she meets Alfred, King of Brytain. The Church, faced with Alfred's determination to reduce its power and influence, tries to kill him and Lyra, but is defeated.

In _The Clockmaker's Boy_, set approximately twenty years after _Threads_, we meet fifteen-year-old Peter Joyce, an apprentice in Oxford. Around this time, the Gobblers reappear and Peter, who is studying alethiometry, Lyra and her gyptian friend Arthur Shire discover that Elizabeth Boreal and Miss Morley are taking children's Dust to power a machine for travelling between the worlds. Lyra and Will are briefly reunited, but the meeting is bittersweet, as Will is married now. In the final struggle Miss Morley is killed by mysterious forces.

In _The Queen of the Night_, Elizabeth Boreal corrupts with nightmares the dream-communication of Will, Lyra and their friends. Please note that following an unfortunate change in policy at FF.NET which has banned NC-17 rated stories, this story is now only accessible at my sitelet www.geocities.com/ceres_wunderkind, or you can find the link on my bio page. Sorry about the inconvenience which is due to factors beyond my control.

Now read on…

**_A Gift of Love_**

**__**

It is the day of the funeral.

Where is everybody? What are they doing, all these different people, each living in their own worlds? Once they were connected by a web of dreams; now they are separated, fearing the dark, and sleep, and what horrors sleep may bring. How did they react to the news and how have they come to terms with it?

Let us see:

_Cittagazze_

Guilietta Reigali was standing in front of a group of six-year-old children, conducting her class in the recital of their seven times table, when she learned what had happened. The children, all of them, adored their teacher, loving her for her kindness, her strength and her understanding. They were dismayed when they saw her suddenly pause in her energetic leading of her pupils through the intricacies of the multiples of seven; so hard to learn, so easy to forget. Guilietta turned pale and put out her hand towards the wall. She stood still for a minute, breathing shallowly, her face turned away from the children who, startled by the unexpected hiatus in the lesson and dismayed by the blow that she, their beloved teacher, had received, sat in silence, even fair-haired Reynaldo Migucci, who would normally have been expected to start playing about or whispering to the boy sitting next to him if Signora Reigali did not keep her eye upon him.

Presently, Guilietta turned to face her class. She saw twenty small faces looking up at her, frightened, staring, lost, as if their lives too had been knocked back by the same stroke of grief that had so taken her unawares. She gathered herself together and spoke, momentarily surprised to find that that she had the breath to do so.

'Reynaldo?'

'Signora?'

'Reynaldo, all of you, listen please. Something has happened and I must go home at once. I do not know when I will be able to return. Not today, I think.

'Reynaldo, I want you to come up to the front of the class, where I am standing, and finish going through the seven times table with your classmates. When you can all say it perfectly, you may go home. School will continue as normal tomorrow morning.'

Awed by Signora Reigali's stern, controlled, face and obvious distress, Reynaldo, far and away the brightest child in the class, stepped up to the front of the sunlit whitewashed room.

'Lead them well, Reynaldo,' Guilietta leaned over the anxious boy and whispered in his ear. 'I know you will. Be good – for my sake.'

'Si, Signora.' The boy looked scared. Guilietta put a hand briefly on his shoulder and left the classroom. She slipped out of the front door of the little two-room school where she was headmistress and stepped into the street which led down to the harbour of the town of Cittagazze. 

She did not mean to deceive them, but she had lied when she told her class that she was going home. She loved her husband, and their two children profoundly, but this thing that had happened was outside their experience, and their sympathy, although real enough, would not have had the depth of understanding that she needed so desperately. Instead she went to the one place, where the one person who would truly know how she felt would, she knew, be waiting for her.

Reaching the harbour wall, Guilietta walked along the promenade as far as the steps. Theirs (you should _know_ this) was the ninth step down from the pavement – just far enough to be invisible from the roadway, still high enough to be able to see over the far harbour wall to the bay beyond. This was _their_ place; where they could tell each other their secrets and their stories, and share their hopes and fears.

'Carlo!'

'Oh, Guili!'

Her brother was waiting for her, his face as pale under his sunburn as her own, which was naturally fair. Now, at last, she could weep freely. Flinging her arms around her brother's shoulders she pressed her cheek against his and held him close. Their tears mingled and their bodies trembled, shaken by the force of their sorrow. The brilliant yellow sun shone mockingly down on them out of the blue skies of Cittagazze.

_Aldermaston, Berkshire_

The narrowboat _Maggie_ had just passed through Aldermaston Lock and her trailing butty boat, the _Jimmy,_ had followed her dutifully through the top gates of the lock and through the little lift-bridge at its head. The pair of boats had been coupled back together and were steaming gently along the Kennet and Avon Canal towards Newbury when Arthur Shire, leaning against the cockpit rail with his arm resting along the _Maggie_'s tiller and his magpie-daemon Sal perched next to him, suddenly knew, with a clarity uniquely his own, that the world had changed, and not for the better.

He turned and waved to Harry Owen, his business partner and steersman of the _Jimmy_, pointing towards the left. Harry pushed his tiller over to the right, turning the _Jimmy_ towards the bank of the canal, next to the towpath and being careful to keep the line which connected the two boats taut. Harry sensed that there was something wrong – Arthur's stance at the rail of the _Maggie_ had changed.

Harry moored the _Jimmy_ fore and aft and joined Arthur in the _Maggie_'s cockpit. Something was definitely not right, Harry could tell, not only from the bleak look on Arthur's face but also within himself. Something had chilled him, although the sun was bright and warm, flickering between the leaves of the trees which lined the sides of the canal.

They sat on opposite sides of the cockpit, facing each other, each waiting for the other to speak. The _Maggie_'s engine, its polished metalwork glinting, was still, steam hissing gently though a safety-valve. _He looks old_, Harry thought. It had never struck him before; that Arthur, although his deeply lined face was sunburned and weathered by thirty years of working the canals of Brytain, would ever look old. There was too much vitality in him for that.

'We'll stop here for today,' Arthur said.

'Yes.'

'Make us a cup of tea, would you?'

Harry stepped down into the _Maggie_'s cabin. It was, as always, tidy, neat, and spotlessly clean, as if the cargo of sea-coal which filled the hold of the boat was forbidden to come any further sternwards than its own appointed domain. He raised the cover of the naphtha stove and lit it, being careful to put the spent match into the cream delft jar which stood to the right of the stove and was reserved for that purpose. His daemon Mike had followed him into the cabin.

'There's something awful going on.'

'Or it's already happened.'

'I felt it.'

'I know.'

'He'll tell us, if we give him time.'

Harry turned from the stove, where the kettle was just beginning to come to the boil, and looked up through the cabin's double doors towards Arthur, where he sat motionless by the cockpit rail holding his cloth cap in his hands, looking at the floor. The more discerning eye would have detected something resembling a hooded cloak of sparkling gold threads, resting on his shoulders and forming a halo around his bowed head.

_Fleet Street, London_

Adèle Starminster was standing next to the anbarograph in the newsroom of the _Chronicle_ when the machine burst into life, ticking and clacking loudly and jerkily ejecting its message on a strip of paper tape. Journalistic instincts to the fore, Adèle took the paper in her hand and read the message as it was printed. Maybe there would be an interesting story there, one she could follow up.

The name on the tape was unfamiliar to begin with. Adèle thought for a moment, and then realised exactly who it was that had died, and what might be the implications of this death. When the message finished, she tore the strip off and took it into the editor's office, where she showed it to her boss.

'I want to look into this one myself.'

'Why? Why you, Adèle? One of the juniors could do it.'

_Careful! Don't admit you're personally involved._ 'I've got some contacts there already. I'll get more out of this one than the kids will.'

The editor looked dubious. Then; 'Very well. Only a couple of days. Keep in touch.'

'Yessir!' She turned to leave the office.

'Adèle?'

'Yes?'

'This is the Boreal Foundation you're getting yourself involved with here. For God's sake don't do anything foolish. Don't dig too deep – you could get us all into a great deal of trouble.'

'I'll be… discreet.' Adèle returned to her desk and, taking out a well-thumbed copy of Bradshaw from the drawer, she looked up the times of the Oxford trains.

_Damn. Here we go again. Where's Arthur when I need him?_

_Bristol_

Sister Judy Parry was admitted by her home as usual, that Thursday night. She had been on the evening shift, from four o'clock until midnight, at Frenchay Hospital so it was a quarter to one o'clock in the morning when the front door recognised her biometrics and swung wide open to let her into the dimly-lit hall.

She had intended to make herself a cup of cocoa in the kitchen and then sit down and watch a little TV, or read a book, before going to bed, but something stopped her. There was something wrong, or missing, but she couldn't identify exactly what it was.

A soft chime sounded. It was the house, attracting her attention.

'House?'

'Judy, there are two messages for you.'

The first message concerned a planned interruption of network connectivity. The second sent her rushing upstairs, where the bedrooms were empty and the beds not slept in.

_Oxford_

Peter Joyce felt it, like a physical blow to the skull, and for a moment he thought that he had bumped into a shelf or a cupboard, and he put his hand up to his head.

'Viola? What is it? What's going on?'

'Wait, Peter, wait.' His squirrel-daemon ran up his arm.

'It's something terrible, I know it is. What's happened? Oh, my head! It feels so strange.'

'Sit down, Peter.' The boy groped his way across the workshop floor, nearly tripping over a stool, and found a chair by the wall. He slumped into it. Master James was in the shop, talking to a customer, so it was several minutes before he found Peter, his face blanched with fear, sitting with his head in his hands, gasping for breath.

'Peter!' Master James shook the boy's shoulder. 'Peter, what is it?'

'N-Nothing, Master. I'm all right. I'm sorry.' Peter tried to stand up, but his master kept his hand on his apprentice's shoulder, preventing him from rising.

'What is wrong, Peter? Are you ill? Have you been having bad dreams again? Please tell me.'

Peter looked up, his face blank, his eyes full of pain. 'Master – I'm sorry. I must go!' The boy wriggled out of Master James' grip and dashed out through the shop and into the street. Pell-mell he ran, past shops and busy thoroughfares, public houses and restaurants, taking little heed of the people he passed, or knocked into, in his desperate hurry.

He scarcely slowed down as he ran through the gateway of Jordan College. A junior porter shouted after him, 'Hoi! Where do you think you're going!' but his older and wiser colleague said, 'Don't worry about him. That's young Peter, Professor Belacqua's student.'

'What's his hurry?'

'I don't know. Ask him yourself, when he comes back out. I'm off home.' The older man picked up his satchel and turned out of the porter's lodge.

Peter ran across quadrangles and down passageways, past cool cloisters and closeted halls, up and down wide staircases of carved stone, until he reached the stair where Professor Belacqua's rooms were located. Hardly pausing for breath, he clattered up the wooden steps to the door of her rooms. It was unlocked and slightly ajar, so he pushed it open and entered her study.

Thank heavens! There was Lyra, sitting as usual at her desk by the window with her elbows resting on its surface, a pile of books to her right and the alethiometer in its usual place on the blotter in front of her. No sign of her daemon Pantalaimon, but there was nothing unusual about that.

'Professor! Lyra!'

No response.

'Lyra! Wake up!'

Still no response. And then Peter saw, and it was like a thunderbolt striking him down where he stood, that Lyra was sitting unnaturally still, and that there was a thin stream of blood, scarcely yet congealed, running from her left nostril and pooling on the top of the desk. He stopped breathing for a moment then, knowing in his heart that it was useless, he shook her shoulder, and implored her, over and over again, to wake up.

Eventually, he had to stop. There was no point in carrying on any further; nothing to do now but call for help.

An angry old man, a professor of the Elder Eddar who lived in the adjacent rooms, answered his cries. 'What is all this about, you foolish boy? You have disturbed my studies.'

Peter pointed to Professor Belacqua where she lay slumped across her desk, following his vain attempts to rouse her.

'It's Lyra – Professor Belacqua, sorry. She won't talk to me. She's not breathing!'

The ancient professor took Lyra's wrist in his hand, felt for a pulse and, finding none, looked bleakly up to Peter.

'Is she?' the boy asked.

'Yes, I'm afraid she is.' And through the misty veil that was forming over his vision, Peter saw, in the bleared eyes of the old man, that his worst fears had come true and that Lyra Belacqua was dead.


	2. Before

Lyra Belacqua is dead, then.

What did she die of?  Doctor William Parry could perhaps have told us, had he somehow been able to cross the gap between the worlds and find his way to the place where she lay.  If he could have found the strength of purpose to examine the dead body of his first love, then he might, if his skill were not too much blunted by his grief, have come to the conclusion, provisional of course and subject to confirmation by an experienced pathologist, that she died of a broken heart.  Or a brain haemorrhage.  Or something like that.

_London_

Elizabeth Boreal is triumphant. This is her victory.  She has finally put an end to the rivalry between her sister and herself.  At last she is revenged upon Lyra; not least for the way she looked that day in Brown's, over twenty years ago, when she announced that she had finally made contact with Will Parry and humiliated Elizabeth before all the diners there.

She, Lady Elizabeth Boreal, heiress to the incomparable beauty of her mother and the immense fortune of her father, Lord Charles Boreal.  She, head of the powerful and influential Boreal Foundation; feared and respected equally the length and breadth of Brytain, second only to Jordan College in its social and industrial power.

It has been more than ten years since Elizabeth last needed to handle actual money, she is so detached from the commerce of the everyday world.  It is longer than that since she last had to dress herself, or walk anywhere, unless she chose to, or eat anything that she had rather not, or feel too cold, or too warm, or suffer any discomfort at all.  There are cars, yachts, airships and private trains to transport her, a horde of servants to minister to her, a choice of elegant and stylish houses and apartments for her to occupy.  Everything that may be bought with money is hers, and more.  She has never failed to be admitted to any Society gathering, never been debarred from any place but one, and that merely Jordan College, a wasteful and inefficient establishment staffed by wilful eccentrics and over-ripe for reform.  No man has been able to resist her perfumed aura of beauty and power for very long – the rumours that she was once the King's mistress may not be altogether unfounded.

Despite all this – the money, the luxury, the power, the cosseting – there was one person whom she could not suborn, one who stood up to her, one whose moral strength was so great that all her efforts to overcome it were in vain.  How can it have been that her insignificant half-sister Lyra; not rich, not beautiful, buried in academic obscurity, only modestly talented, could have resisted her for so long?

One by one, Elizabeth has seen her attempts to resume her trade with the world of Will Parry fail.  She has lost the Subtle Knife twice, her experiments with buckythread have come to nothing and, although her Foundation succeeded in constructing a vehicle to travel between the worlds it too was destroyed and the source of its power, the Dust of intercised children, cut off.  Not even the Boreal Foundation could kidnap and murder children on such an industrial scale and expect to escape justice for long.

She has had her partial revenge, cutting off the lines of communication between her enemies by corrupting their dreams, but it was a terrible strain to project such extreme nightmares into their thoughts – a strain that she could not endure indefinitely.   Lyra's death, if it was not actually caused by the mental torment inflicted on her night after night by her estranged sibling, was a very welcome, though unexpected, outcome of it.  And it was also a considerable relief for Elizabeth, who was beginning to notice that her own dreams were starting to be infected with dread.

She rises from the breakfast table and looks out over the Embankment to the river Isis and the office blocks on the south bank, all of them owned and operated by the Boreal Foundation.  The morning sun sparkles off the surface of the river and the windows of the buildings opposite.  There is a car, long, silver-grey and low-slung, waiting for her by the front door, waiting to take her to Oxford.

She knows she looks stunning in black, and it is a beautiful day for a funeral.

_Bristol_

At the very last moment Judy Parry has decided that she will, after all, accompany her husband and son to Oxford.  All week she has been struggling with herself, her mind a battleground over which the forces of her conflicting emotions have raged to and fro.  Now her sympathy for Will's distress convinces her that she must be with him in this difficult time, standing by him, supporting him, and drives back her jealousy.  Now her resentment of Lyra's pre-eminent, for so she cannot help but see it, place in her husband's affections freezes her heart, dries up the wellsprings of her spirit, leaving her cold, parched and desolate.  She has been hanging on the old barbed wire of the no-mans-land of this trench war for her immortal soul for seven whole days.

Although she does not know it, the same battle has been fought between Will and the angel Remiel, who has begged to be allowed to intervene, to try himself to persuade her to go to Oxford with Will and John.  In the end, Will prevailed.  'She must go of her own free will, or not at all,' he said, chin thrust forward, hands on hips, defying the golden shape which stood before him in the darkness of the midnight house.

Judy has suffered terribly.  But now that the war has been fought, and won, perhaps, when the funeral is over and Lyra is buried, Will and Judy will be able to start again, and rediscover the love that brought them together, that night in his Oxford flat, when they first shared their stories with one another.

Perhaps.

_Oxford_

Master James has given his apprentice special leave of absence today.  Even his mistress has treated him kindly, making sure that the boy has eaten a decent breakfast and buying a posy for him to place on the grave.  He is wearing his best Sunday clothes, augmented by a black tie which his master has given him.  His shoes are polished, his face freshly scrubbed and his hair carefully brushed.  He looks solemn and, did he but know it, very handsome as he walks slowly out of the front door of the shop, and Jane Phipps, waiting for him in the shade of the canopy which protects the milliner's shop opposite from the rays of the sun, cannot help it that her heart jumps unexpectedly when she sees him, even on such a day as this.  Jane is also dressed in sober black, in an outfit made up for her, as a gift, by her seamstress friends at Maison Jeanette.  She takes Peter's arm and they walk together down Shoe Lane and into the High Street.

It is not far from there to Magdelen Bridge.

_Cittagazze_

Giancarlo and Guilietta cannot tell which location in their world corresponds with the place in Lyra's Oxford where she is to be buried, so they walk slowly hand-in-hand up the dusty road which climbs out of Cittagazze until it becomes a narrow lane, and then a path, before fading away completely and merging into the springy grass that carpets the hills which stand above their home.  Reaching the top, they turn and look out towards the south, over the town with its red roofs, white walls and green parks, across the blue sea and, shading their eyes, towards the sun, riding at the zenith.  They let go of each other's hands and stand, heads bowed, waiting for midday.

_Oxford_

The car drops Will, Judy and John at the park and ride station in Witney.  They have been unable to gain the special dispensation from the city authorities which would permit them to drive all the way into overcrowded Oxford, so they must make this part of their journey by bus, sitting incongruously dressed in mourning clothes among the shoppers who have crowded the vehicle with their trolleys, baskets and noisy children.  The trip takes thirty hot and uncomfortable minutes; then they are at Oxford railway station, where Mary Malone, who has flown directly from Switzerland this morning, is waiting to join them on the last stage of their pilgrimage.

It is both a joy and a penance, to walk up the hill from the station towards the centre of Oxford, and thence towards the river.


	3. The Funeral

Across the worlds they have converged, each with their own memories of, their own feelings towards, the one who has died and to whom they have come to say goodbye.

Time links them.  This is a particular time, the time that is common to them all, the time that has converged, narrowing down to this one singular point.  It is approaching twelve o'clock on the twenty-first of June, Midsummer's Day, and they have come to bury Lyra Belacqua, sometime Professor of Literature at Jordan College, Oxford, who has died at the bitterly unfair age of only forty-seven.

_Oxford_

Adèle Starminster, journalist, stands near to the entrance of the Botanic Garden, observing the mourners as they pass through the wrought-iron gates and into the grounds.  One by one, or in pairs, or larger groups, they come, black-clad and sombre of face.  

There is the Master of Jordan College, accompanied by a flock of dons, their gowns flapping behind them, taking off their mortarboards as they approach the graveside.  Learned Scholars and Professors all, well-used to the stately procedures of formal ritual, they will not fail to observe the proprieties today.

Here is a boy of sixteen or seventeen, and his sister, or maybe she is his girl, with him, holding his hand.  He is very distressed, Adèle can see, but being as brave as he can, and the young couple make a fine counterpoint to the elderly academics who have preceded them.  How is he connected with Lyra? Adèle wonders.  She makes a note to talk to him later.

There are other townsfolk too, shuffling behind Lyra's colleagues, carrying their caps and hats in their hands, eyes downcast.  It is quite a turnout for an obscure academic, but then Adèle remembers that Lyra was also a skilled alethiometrist.  Her readings must have benefited the lives of many people who would otherwise have had little to do with Jordan College.  There must be many folk whose lives were changed for the better by learning the truth – the truth about their lives, their prospects, those who sought to harm them.

'Adèle!  Here you is.'  It is Arthur Shire; who once helped Adèle through a personal crisis in her life; not by divining an external truth with an alethiometer, but by opening her own heart to her and allowing her to see herself whole, and by understanding what she saw, giving her the ability to forgive herself.  They embrace, and her butterfly-daemon Lysander greets Arthur's magpie-formed Sarastus.  There is a man with Arthur, another survivor of Bolvangar, and she shakes Harry Owen's hand warmly.

It is rumoured that there will be a very important mourner at this funeral, and the police who have been a circumspect presence among the crowds of people who have gathered by the gates of the Botanic Garden are moving now, pressing the onlookers back against the railings and clearing the roadway so that a carriage may pass through without danger.

Adèle has received a tip-off in advance, so she is ready to observe and note the stunned reaction of the crowd who are now lining the pavements when a coach, painted in deepest glossy black and bearing the royal coat of arms drives slowly up the road from the railway station and through the gates.  The King!  Suddenly, the burial ceremony has become an event of national importance, not simply the interment of an obscure Professor of English Literature.

The white-haired figure, in the stooped posture which is familiar to everyone from his appearances in newspapers and newsreels, steps down from the coach where it has halted just inside the gates, turns to wave sadly to his assembled people and walks slowly to the side of the hole in the ground which is waiting, ready to receive Lyra's coffin.  He takes his place there, head bowed, next to the Bishop of Oxford and the Master of Jordan, who have been waiting to receive him.

Everybody stands in silence for ten minutes.  The hush is disturbed only by the cries of the birds, or of children, and the rustle of the gentle wind in the leaves of the trees and hedges which fill this less formal part of the Botanic Garden.  The sun shines down on them all, the rich and the poor, the inconsequential and the leaders of men.  Some hold their daemons closely, many are absorbed in themselves, lips moving in involuntary speech.

_By their daemons shall ye know them_ thinks Adèle, recalling other similar times, in peace and in war.  So often, a person's brave or honest face is betrayed by his cowardly or cunning daemon.

At last, as the clocks of the city start to chime for midday, there is a rumbling of wheels, clearly heard in the strange hush which has overtaken, so it seems, the whole of Oxford, and the hearse which carries Lyra's coffin, laden with wreaths and strewn with the flowers which have been thrown onto it on its short journey from the Oratory of Jordan College, where she has been lying in a small side-chapel, slowly, carefully, taking no chances with its precious burden, enters the Botanic Garden and comes to a stop next to the royal carriage.

Wearing white surplices, eight boys from the Dragon School, where she often taught, step forward and take the simple pine coffin, sliding oaken bearers through its brass hoops and, as they have been instructed, lifting it up and over the bier on which it lies.  They wait, and as soon as the last bell in the last clock tower of the city has finished sounding twelve o'clock, they carry the coffin to its last resting place, to the beat of a muffled drum.

They stop under the spreading branches of a low-hanging tree, before an old wooden bench, both of which have long been preserved unchanged by order of the Master of Jordan College.  Here, in the place she loved best, is where she will lie forever.

The chaplain of Jordan walks to the graveside and, opening his copy of the Book of Common Prayer, speaks the opening words of the Order of Burial.

'Dearly beloved, men and daemons together, we are gathered…'

Suddenly, in breach of all protocol, a large silver-grey car pulls up outside the gates and a middle-aged, but still very beautiful, woman gets out of it without waiting for the chauffeur to open the door for her.  She strides up to the graveside, curtseys elegantly to the King and the Bishop, and takes her place next to them, this being no more than her due as Lyra's last next of kin.

_Elizabeth Boreal!_ Adèle can hardly believe it.  The gall of the woman!  Turning up here, where she is least wanted, exploiting her rights as Lyra's last living relative to ride roughshod over the feelings of everybody else!  _She's gloating, the evil bitch!  I know she is_.  Adèle knows that she must not antagonise the Boreal Foundation in her reports. They own a large share in the _Chronicle_, and if her editor is forced to dismiss her, following an uncomplimentary article, she will be blacklisted and not be able to find work as a journalist anywhere else. She must record the appearance of Lady Boreal as if it were the most natural thing in the world

Elizabeth turns to the chaplain.  'So terribly sorry,' she says.  'Awful traffic in Cowley.  I really thought we wouldn't get here in time.  You'd only just got going, hadn't you?  Shall we start again, from the top?'  She gives him a wide smile and her serpent-daemon raises his head above her left ear.

The poor bemused cleric has no choice in the matter.  He begins again:

'Dearly beloved, men and daemons together, we are gathered…'

_Oxford_

There are a few tourists and the usual lunchtime regulars in the Botanic Garden this sunny Monday.  One of the regulars is a woman in her late forties who has taken to visiting the Garden as often as she can, in remembrance of a dear friend who died many years before, and who once taught her the importance of stories, and truth.  _And lost me my place on the footy team_, she thinks, recalling her visits to the History Professor's room and the wisdom he passed on to her.  She looks up and, bang on time, sees the man she sees there each Midsummer's Day, accompanied by a boy who is obviously his son, a woman whom she presumes to be his wife and an older woman, grey-haired and stout.  They are dressed in unseasonable, formal, dark clothes.

Will, who has seen this woman in the Garden nearly every Midsummer's Day for the past twenty years or more, but never stopped to speak to her or learn her name, smiles forlornly in her direction.  Then the four of them turn to face the tree, and the bench where the woman has seen him sit, every year on this day, for an hour of quiet reflection, and stand, heads bowed and hands clasped in front of them, as the clocks of Oxford proclaim the coming of midday.

_Cittagazze_

Neither Giancarlo nor Guilietta ever met Lyra, so their loss is not so personal as that of those who weep for her in the two Oxfords.  But they remember Will Parry and know how much Lyra meant to him, so they stand on the summit of the hill overlooking Cittagazze in honour of them both.  A single bell sounds in the town below.  It is noon.

How can it be that they _know_ when the ceremony of burial begins; that they share the outrage of Arthur and Adèle when Elizabeth Boreal makes her unwelcome appearance?   They are not there, in that Oxford, although Giancarlo and his father Giovanni visited that world many times to rescue the Exiles, in the fulfilment of their first Task.  What is the universal principle that has brought them all together for this sad celebration?

_Time_, remember.  It is Time that has united them – Time which, for a short while, has linked their essences across the worlds.  Time binds them now, so that all Lyra's friends, whether they knew her or not, whichever world their physical bodies occupy, stand sorrowing before her grave, as the chaplain speaks the words of the burial service and her coffin is lowered with infinite loving care into the place that has been prepared for it.


	4. Afterwards

_Afterwards_.  There is always an afterwards, for the living.

What will they do now, these survivors?  What will they do with the rest of their lives?

_Oxford_

_Is it all over now_? Judy asks herself, as the car takes them home to Bristol, and their lives, and their afterwards.  The green fields of England flash past the windows.  Will has chosen to drive the car manually and sits hunched over the wheel, rigidly self-controlled.

Judy had felt uncomfortable and embarrassed as they stood in the Garden.  She could feel the curious eyes of the other people there looking at her.  She could almost hear their thoughts – who is this odd family?  Are they part of some weird cult religion?  Should somebody call the police?

And who was that woman sitting on the bench in the Botanic Garden?  Has Will been seeing her regularly, all these years?  They seemed to know each other.  Yet another doubt for Judy to deal with.

In the back seat, John and Mary are talking quietly about small things.  Mary's post as Professor of post-Incident physics at CERN, John's exams (he is in the middle of his A levels), new games and videos, the music Judy tries (and fails) to keep in touch with.

Judy turns to look at Will, who is concentrating hard on his driving.  Is he going to be able to recover from this blow?  Will either of them be able to make a new start now, or will the ghost of Lyra Belacqua continue to haunt them for ever?

_Oxford_

When the funeral is over, and the last tears have been shed and the King and Lady Boreal have departed, and all the Professors, Scholars and Exhibitioners of the University of Oxford have returned to their colleges, and the Bishop to his palace, Arthur Shire introduces Adèle Starminster and Harry Owen to Peter Joyce and his friend Jane.

'Peter has a story of his own to tell you some day, Adèle.  Strictly off the record, mind!'

They walk, Adèle on Arthur's arm and Peter and Jane holding hands, and Harry by himself (but not alone.  Nobody in this world of men and daemons is ever alone) into the centre of Oxford, to the High, and Shoe Lane, where they, at Peter's suggestion, go to the Talbot Inn for lunch.  Not in the cramped and smoky snug this time, but to the saloon bar, where prosperous-looking businessmen and middle-class shoppers drink wine and full-bodied ale, and there is a joint of beef, and lamb chops and roast potatoes and peas.

'My shout,' says Adèle, 'or, rather, the _Chronicle_'s.  This is all on expenses!'

They find a table by the window overlooking Shoe Lane.  Food and drink are brought to them by a waiter whose manner is altogether more polite than the apprentices are used to in the snug.

When they have eaten, they talk.  Jane is feeling more than a little overwhelmed by the emotions of the day and the lavish entertainment that Adèle has provided (for her family are country folk, who live very simply) and sips her unfamiliar glass of wine quietly, while listening to the talk – wild talk, it seems, of times and places far beyond her experience.  She whispers in Peter's ear, 'You never told me half of this!' and he replies, 'I didn't know half of it myself!'

The fabled Armoured Bears of the north, and a world where the houses talk to you, and cruelty beyond her imagining – all these things Jane learns about, in the prosaic wood-panelled surroundings of the Talbot Inn, Shoe Lane, Oxford, while outside the town comes back to bustling life, content to have done its duty by Professor Belacqua and ready now to pick up the reins, get back into harness and carry on with its business.

They talk and talk and then all of a sudden it is a quarter to three, and time for Peter and Jane to return to their businesses too.  It would not be proper for the young people to display too much affection in public while standing outside James and James, Makers of Fine Clocks and Instruments, or Maison Jeannette, Modes for the Lady of Distinction, so they say their goodbyes to Harry, Arthur and Adèle and, in a small alcove just inside the entrance on the Talbot Inn, hold and kiss each other fondly.  Then they separate, promising to meet up again later when they are freed from their duties, and they return to their places of work.

I cannot say whether we shall ever see Peter or Jane again, nor is it at all likely that we shall learn how their lives will turn out – for good or ill, happy or sad, together or apart – but I trust that they, following their hearts and listening carefully to their daemons, will follow the path that seems right to them.  I do not know either what will happen to Lyra's alethiometer; whether it will revert to Jordan College, or was bequeathed to Peter Joyce in her will or, if Lyra has died intestate, be claimed by the rapacious Boreal Foundation.

I do know that Harry, Arthur and Adèle leave the Talbot Inn themselves not long afterwards; the men to catch a train to Reading, and from there to hitch a lift, or walk if there is nobody going their way, to Aldermaston, where the _Maggie_ and the _Jimmy_ are waiting for their return, and Adèle to return to London.

The walk down to the station and board a Paddington train, sharing a carriage until they part at Reading.  Adèle waves from the carriage window, calling out to Arthur, 'Bye!  Don't leave it so long next time!'

He turns and smiles and waves back to her, as the engine blows smoke and steam over the station footbridge and its wheels slide and grip the polished rails.  _That smile, those eyes_ Adèle thinks, feeling, as she always feels when she says goodbye to Arthur, briefly desolated.  The train leaves Reading and passes through Twyford, Slough and Ealing, and it is late afternoon when she stands at last upon the concourse of Paddington Station and considers whether to return to the newsroom of the _Chronicle_, or go home to her small flat in Swiss Cottage.

In the end, she does neither, but walks three miles to the Embankment and stands there, leaning on the railings, watching the ferry-boats, barges and lighters moving up and down the river, as the hours pass by, and the sun dies in flaming glory in the west and, one by one, the lights come on all up and down the street.

_Cittagazze_

Giancarlo Bellini and Guilietta Reigali lift their eyes from the ground.  It is half past twelve, and in Oxford the great and the good are departing the Botanic Garden and the sexton is preparing to cover Lyra's coffin with earth.

It is not in the nature of these blessed children of a reborn world to draw out their mourning for very long; and so they have brought a picnic – in a woven basket covered by a muslin cloth – of bread and soft goat's cheese, and red wine, and sparkling water, peaches and a few dried apricots.   They eat and drink, and raise their glasses to Lyra's memory and, when they have finished, they pack everything up, leaving the crumbs for the birds, and walk hand in hand back down the hill to Cittagazze, Guilietta to return to her classroom and Giancarlo to his place on the City Council, both of them, all unknowing, advancing the cause of the Republic of Heaven.

_London_

Lady Elizabeth Boreal makes a last deep curtsey to the King of Brytain and returns to her car, which has been waiting for her.  She sinks into the soft cushions and sits back in comfort as it wafts her out of Oxford and onto the A40 main road back to London.  She has already decided to dismiss the driver for the inconvenience he caused her by failing to anticipate the traffic congestion they encountered on the way to Oxford, but she will leave the actual job of getting rid of the wretched man to her private secretary, whom she employs to perform this sort of unpleasant but necessary duty.

Later, in the Mayfair offices of the Boreal Foundation, she attends to those parts of the running of the business which cannot be entrusted to her underlings who, even if they call themselves executives and managers and are usually able to handle the simpler aspects of the day-to-day running of a large and complex corporation, are entirely lacking in the vision and leadership which are needed if the company is to grow and flourish.

They are all _little_ men, obsessed with numbers, and headcounts, and costs and forecasts.  Not one of them can see, she thinks, beyond the end of his warty, pimply nose.

Elizabeth Boreal is not a woman who lacks passion.  Like Elspeth Morley, her most faithful servant, now deceased, she cares deeply for the Foundation which bears her father's name.  This is her main interest now, for the other, her desire to destroy her sister Lyra's life, has been gloriously achieved.  It is as if her father and her uncle are speaking directly to her, urging her onward.

Work!  And work! She will dedicate herself to the cause of expanding the Boreal Foundation until it is a power to rival kingdoms and empires.  She will not rest, she swears, until there is a Boreal office in every city, town and village in the whole planet.  There will be nobody anywhere who will not be a customer or employee of, or a shareholder in, her enterprise.  She will be the Queen of the world.

For the next several weeks she astonishes her friends and colleagues with her energy as she overhauls her organisation from top to bottom, ruthlessly cutting away at the dead wood and rubbish which have been blocking its progress, and poaching promising new staff from rival companies.  The _Chronicle_ reports the revolution that is taking place within the Boreal Foundation in terms which are normally reserved for use by its more excitable sports writers.  The queues grow outside the employment agencies, but why should she care about that?  Her life is a twenty-hour-a-day whirlwind of ceaseless activity – creating, making, and building a solid business structure that will last for ever.

If anyone were to be so foolish as to ask her why she is behaving in this way, Elizabeth would be briefly nonplussed.  They are not conscious motives that are driving her, although she would, after a short pause, be able to advance many completely rational reasons for her actions.  There is a voice in her mind; speaking to her, telling her what she must do.

She _dreams_ business.  There is no time left to her for the dreams of others.  The dream amplifier lies cold and unused in her flat on the Embankment.  She hardly ever sleeps there now anyway; there is a couch set up for her in her office suite in Mayfair.  The dust does not get a chance to settle anywhere that she is; and where she is not there are minimum-wage workers ready to clean and polish.

Eventually, it is her private secretary who calls in the doctor.  She has seen the toll that this frenetic pace has been taking on her employer and has been worrying about it.  Elizabeth has dismissed her concerns with contempt many times, but she is a conscientious and loyal servant and when, early one morning, she wakes her mistress who sits up, wild-eyed, looking for a daemon who does not appear to be there, she knows that she has, at last, gathered the evidence she needs to call for help.  They search frantically, both of them, through Elizabeth's rumpled bed, and it is only after five desperate minutes that they find Parander lying on the floor underneath it.  Almost all his colour has faded away, and he is thin and seriously underweight.

The secretary stands by Elizabeth's bed, hand on hips.  Her duty is plain – she must speak up.

'My lady!  Do I have to knock you over the head?  Or tie you up?  You must stay here – I will lock the door if you do not promise to keep still until the doctor comes.'  She is greatly daring, she knows, to speak to Lady Boreal thus, but this is, quite literally, a matter of life and death.  Elizabeth smiles weakly, and the secretary knows that she has done the right thing.

'He'd better be quick. I have a full Board meeting at seven-thirty and I've got to be in Norwich by eleven.  Tell the old quack to get his arse in gear!'

There is no full board meeting – at least, it is not chaired by Elizabeth.  Nor is there a trip to Norwich, nor a reception for the King of Suomiland.  The doctor makes it perfectly plain to her.  He holds up a hypodermic syringe.

'My lady, do you know what this is?'

'No.'

'It is a fifty percent solution of prussic acid in distilled water.  You have a choice, Lady Boreal.  You can ignore my advice, in which case I will inject you with this solution here and now, and you will die; here and now.  You _will_ die whatever happens, whether I kill you now, or you kill yourself later by overwork.  I had much rather spare you, and everyone else, that inconvenience.

'You must, I say _must_, immediately delegate all your responsibilities and rest.'

'Rest?  Rest? For how long must I rest?'

'Until I permit you to resume your duties, which will not be for several months at the least.'

'But my work…  Can't you give me a tonic?  That's all I need.  I can't stop; there is far too much to do.'

'You will take no more stimulants – you have taken too many already, I think.  Your work will be performed perfectly well by the excellent people whom you have appointed to do it, such as that private secretary of yours.  She deserves a medal for what she did this morning.'

Elizabeth laughs.  'She deserves the sack!'  She pauses to reflect for a moment.  'But no, I suppose you're right.  What should I do, then?'

'Go on holiday.  Go a long way from here, but don't wear yourself out with travel.  Don't go anywhere too hot.'

'Very well, doctor.  I suppose I've no choice.'  The doctor shakes his head.  'No.  You have not.'

'I know just the place!  We'll leave this afternoon!'

'You'll leave tomorrow.  This afternoon you'll rest, my lady.'  And the doctor slips the needle into Elizabeth's arm, injecting, not the deadly poison he threatened her with, (which he has never carried), but a mild sedative.

_Just the place…_ Elizabeth thinks, as sleep overtakes her.  She dreams of wide-open blue skies.  And seagulls.


	5. The Journey

How strange; that the person who has apparently gained the most from Lyra's death should be the one who is now most in need of help…

_London_

It is five days, not one, before Lady Boreal is fit to travel.  She has slept, and woken, and eaten, and demanded to be allowed to use the telephone (and been denied it).  She has ordered her staff to bring her business documents to read and sign, and she has been denied them too.  She has forced herself to get out of bed and go to the window and look out over London, although she can barely lift herself onto her feet.

Patient, skilled, nurses have come to her then, and taken her by the arm, and led her back to bed and given her warm drinks to sooth her, and glossy magazines to distract her.  She has sworn at them, or ignored them, or tried to inveigle them into letting her go back to work, but they are professionals, and they have their orders, so they kindly, professionally, refuse Elizabeth anything which may harm her, or cause a relapse.

Curled around her breast, or looped about her arm, her daemon Parander stays close to her, slowly recovering his health.  His markings return to his skin, his eyes brighten and he steadily gains weight.

The doctor knows that Elizabeth will not be able to let go of the obsession which is killing her if she stays in London, or anywhere that there is a Foundation office, so when she herself suggests a place for her to go he is at first doubtful, for it is a house which has long been in Boreal ownership and he fears that she will get back into bad habits there, but he also considers its comparative isolation and finally gives his approval.

'You must not return to London before August at the very earliest!' he orders her.  'If you do I will call round again, with my syringe, and you know what I will do with it!'

'Yes, doctor.  But, my business…'

'You may have thirty minutes, no more, with the Managing Director before you leave.  Make sure you use them well.'

_I surely will_, she thinks.

That executive is invited to the flat that evening and leaves, after the doctor's strictly enforced half-hour, with his head aching and spinning; such a long list of peremptory instructions has Lady Boreal given him.  Afterwards he sits in his car, hardly less grand than Elizabeth's own, scribbling frantically in a morocco-bound notebook, terrified lest he fail to remember everything that he has been told to do.

_In transit_

The silver-grey limousine takes Elizabeth to Euston station at ten o'clock the following Saturday morning.  She is accompanied by her private secretary and a modest amount of luggage.  The bags are loaded into the guard's van and Lady Boreal and her assistant take their seats in a reserved first-class compartment at the rear of the train.

Precisely on time they leave the platform in a cloud of steam and coal-smoke.  The gradient is steep for the first mile out of Euston and the fumes from the labouring locomotive's funnel hide the blackened brick walls of the deep cuttings they must pass through on their way north.  The secretary stands up to make sure that the compartment's windows are fast shut and rings a bell for the steward to bring them some tea.

They both sit in the window seats – the blinds are pulled all the way down on the corridor side of the compartment – and look out as dirty brickwork gives way to rows of terraced housing.  The train is rapidly gaining speed now; they race through Harrow and Cassiobury and, it seems, before they know it they are at Mugby Junction and make their first stop.  There is a clattering of doors up and down the length of the ten carriages which make up the train.  People get out, holding on to their children, daemons and baggage, calling out to each other, earnestly enquiring of the porters and anyone they see wearing a uniform which platform they should go to for their connection to Cantabriensis, or Stafford, or wherever it may be that they wish to go.  The refreshment rooms are packed with people anxious to get a cup of chai, or a railway bun, in the five, or maybe fewer, minutes they have left before their own trains leave.

From her privileged position in a private compartment at the London end of the train Elizabeth looks out on all this busy activity, all this push and shove and bustle and hurry, and finds to her surprise that she is feeling a little envious of these people's close involvement with the details of everyday life.  She has long been insulated from the actual business of living, as experienced by the ordinary people whom she has risen above because of her aristocratic birth.  _And my own hard work_, she thinks with a sense of pride.  And yet, she thinks, these people work hard too; many of them, no doubt, contributing to the wealth that she enjoys.

There is another feeling too, welling up inside her.  A feeling of excitement, such as she has not felt since she was a little girl, holding tight to her father's hand, crying out in delight at the prospect before her, and having to be restrained from running straight into the water, fully dressed as she was.

_I'm going on holiday!  To the seaside!_

Not long after they rumble through Brummagem New Street station, the stewards come and set up a table between Elizabeth and her companion.  A light lunch is served – ham salad and summer pudding, with a chilled glass of crisp apple-flavoured Mosel wine for each of them.  She leans back in her comfortable seat and dozes as the train passes the Five Towns on its right and turns to the west, travelling along the northern shores of the principality of Cymru.  Over the beautiful suspension bridge at Conwy it clatters, past Llandudno, going slower now as the line twists and turns around the deeply indented coast, the estuary of the river Dee to their right broadening out into open sea, and the mountain peaks of Snowdownia, white and slate-grey, raised up to their left.

Just past Bangor, they cross the Menai Strait by the Telford Bridge and enter the island of Anglesea, and at last, as the afternoon shades into evening, the train slowly glides into the station at Holyhead, where the line, and this part of their journey, comes to an end.

A ground-floor suite has been booked for them in the best hotel in town, and Elizabeth and her secretary will stay there tonight, in two bedrooms connected by a spacious salon. They step down from the four-wheeler which has carried them and their luggage up the hill from the station and, while her servant deals with the driver and the porters and signs the register, Elizabeth, ignoring the ministrations of the over-solicitous hotel manager, walks around the side of the building and onto the terrace which overlooks the sea, and the sunset.  She leans against the wall and looks out over the water.  Out of a cloudless sky the sun, directly in front of her now, shines on her face and a westerly breeze disturbs her hair so that she raises her right hand to shield her eyes and pat her locks back into position.  A song comes to her then, out of her childhood, one that she has not heard for many years, but she remembers the words and the melody and she sings it quietly to herself now:

_Out of the West, they came to us,  
The fortunate and free.  
They came to bring a gift of love,  
For you, my love, and me._

_They came to bring a gift of love,  
Although it cost them dear.  
They brought it in a merry song,  
For you and me to hear._

_It's to the West that we must go,  
To hear that song again.  
It's in the West that we shall find,  
A cure for all our pain._

_And should it be that we shall find,  
A place where we can stay.  
We'll take that song into our hearts,  
And sing it every day_

It is an old tune, and the words are all but meaningless now and she has forgotten some of the verses, but Elizabeth cannot prevent the tears from running down her cheeks as she sings it, and she strokes Parander gently before returning to the entrance of the hotel and the stuffy, over-decorated rooms where she will spend the night.

At noon on Sunday they board the steam-packet _Stephen Dedalus_ which will take them on the next stage of their journey.  Lady Boreal's secretary is still very concerned about her mistress' health; she was wearied by the previous day's travel and slept for nearly ten hours that night.  She insists that Lady Boreal take a cabin in the middle of the vessel, where its motion will disturb her as little as possible, and only allows her on deck for brief periods of time, as the wind is fresh and the sea scattered with white-capped waves.

They arrive in Dun Laoghaire in the early evening and, disembarking, are carried the few short miles to the centre of the city of Baile Atha Cliath, where they check into the splendour of the Shelbourne Hotel, where it faces onto Stephen's Green.

Eire!  At last!  All Elizabeth's favourite childhood memories are here; in the rolling hills and soft rains of the Irish countryside, the long sandy beaches of its shores.  Here she made her first sandcastle, rode her first pony, climbed her first mountain.  Sometimes her father's friend, the beautiful Mrs Coulter, would be there with them and she would always be kind and gracious and loving in a way which surprised and delighted Elizabeth, who did not then, nor for many years afterwards, know that the woman who would come and sing her to sleep – with the same sweet simple song which she had sung to herself the night before in Holyhead – was her natural mother.

It was on the lakes of Cill Airne that she first learned to sail a boat, she remembers, and wonders, even as she sits in the gilt and crystal glory of the Shelbourne's dining room, if there will be a dinghy at the house that she can take out into the bay or a horse that she can ride.  'Not far now,' whispers Parander, and the voice that has been speaking to her all this time agrees with him.

The old grey house stands on the westernmost end of the Dingle peninsula, embedded in granite rocks, surrounded by gardens which are enclosed by high stone walls to protect the flowers, herbs and grass that grow there from the Atlantic winds which blow all the way from New Denmark.  It is late and the sun is setting as a pony and trap are admitted through the iron gates, and a solitary servant comes to the door to welcome Miss Elizabeth, for so this elderly woman cannot help but call Lady Boreal, whom she has known since she was a baby.

'Siobhan!' Elizabeth cries out joyfully, seeing the stooped form of the housekeeper waiting for her inside the hall.  'It's wonderful to see you!'

'My lady, you are welcome to the house of Tir-na-nÓg,' the woman formally replies, and stands back to let her in.  Elizabeth is worn out after ten hours of travel, first by bumpy CIE train, then in a wheezing old country bus and finally enduring the jolting ride of the house's pony and trap over the unmade roads which lead to this most remote of the Boreal's Irish properties, but nevertheless she flings her arms around the woman and hugs her tightly, startling her and her terrier-daemon very much indeed.

By any sensible financial measure, this place is a business liability and it should have been sold off years ago.  It is a money pit, requiring endless maintenance and providing little or no return.  But Elizabeth has never considered disposing of it, even in her most ruthless moments.  It holds too many happy memories for her ever to think of selling it.

She has been given, naturally, the best bedroom in the house, but she rejects it, preferring to sleep in the modest chamber she occupied when she was a child.  The little blue bedroom is just as she remembers it; there is a single bed, a linen press and a chest of drawers and, set low in one wall, there is a window, with a ledge that is wide enough to sit on; looking out towards the west, facing the sunset.

Here, if anywhere, she will find peace, and strength, and the resolution to do what she knows she must do.


	6. The Beach

Nobody who has spent so much time in the public eye can simply vanish and not expect their disappearance to be noted and commented on.

_London_

Adèle is talking to the editor of the _Chronicle_ in the saloon bar of the Vine public house in Fleet Street.

'So she's just upped sticks and gone?'

'Looks like it, boss.'

'I don't understand what's going on here.  You say she hated her sister, this Professor Belacqua, and practically danced on her grave?'

'Half-sister.  It was the most disgraceful display of bad manners, to say the least, I've seen in a long time.  And I'm sure she had something to do with Lyra's death.'

'Well,' the editor stops to consider and drinks down half of his pint of Bass.  It is a hot day, in an especially splendid July.  'You handled the funeral pretty well.  What do you want to do now?  Follow her; track her down?'

'I want to know what's going on.  There's something very funny here.  First all that activity, then nothing.  It's possible she's had some kind of nervous breakdown.'

'Hmmm.'

'Look, this is a matter of public interest.  I'll be careful – trust me.'

'You'd better be.  I think you're right; there is something odd, and we ought to find out.'  He lowers his voice.  'In our own interests, if nothing else.  If the BF is going belly-up there's going to be big trouble for everyone.  But Adèle…'

'Yes, boss?'

'_Be careful_.'

'I will.'

_Aquae Sulis_

The _Maggie_ and _Jimmy_ are moored up not far from the Pump Room, where Arthur, for reasons which Harry can only guess at, has gone to take the waters.  Refreshed, he returns to the boats and finds his partner sitting by the towpath, whittling at a stick.

'There's something wrong, isn't there?' Harry asks, seeing the look on Arthur's face.  'I mean; something else, something new.'

'We thought it was all over, when Lyra died.  Now we isn't so sure.'  Arthur enters the cabin of the _Maggie_ and closes the door behind him.

_The Dingle Peninsula_

Elizabeth has been living in the old house for nearly a week now, and every day her strength and her resolution have grown.  She has eaten well – on soda bread, fruit juice and kaffee for breakfast, fish and seafood at night.  She has spent the days alone walking on the rocks and hills around the house, taking a packed lunch of sandwiches and porter in a small rucksack slung over one shoulder.  She has sat on a high pillar of stone, overlooking the sea and facing west, always west, and eaten and drunk and waited for the voice in her mind to tell Parander and her when the right time has come.  She has not hurried the voice, nor urged it to speak when it would not, but enjoyed the days and nights as they have passed by, sunlit and blue-skied, one by one this magnificent hot summer.

How calmly, how persuasively, it speaks!  How clear and _necessary_ its words to her!

She had wondered if she would be able to sleep; but she need not have worried.  Sleep has taken her in its arms and wooed her, caressing her soul and soothing her nights with dreams of peace.  The days have been long, and full of clean air – impossible to compare with the clogged atmosphere she left behind her in the city – the nights are blessed with stars, and tranquillity, and memories of childhood.  The world of work has receded very far from her now.  Her private secretary, acting on doctor's orders, has left her alone and is waiting in Baile Atha Cliath against the time when Elizabeth is ready to return to London.

When Sunday comes, she joins the staff and the inhabitants of the nearby hamlet in the little whitewashed oratory.  Previously the ceremony of Mass has been no more than a social duty for her, long and boring, but today, of all days, she relaxes into the flow of the service and emerges from it refreshed and ready for what she must do.

There is an hour to go before lunch, and she tells Siobhan that she will go for a swim.

'Be careful, Miss Elizabeth,' the old woman warns her. 'The current can be fearfully strong by the Coign Rocks.'

'I won't go near them,' she reassures the housekeeper, and gives her a kiss and a penny, for luck.  Then she walks over the headland into the next bay, a broad crescent of pale sand facing, as it ought, due west.

She stands for a moment, looking all about her and then, as she did when she was a child, takes off her clothes and places them in a neat pile by the line of shingle which marks the high tide.  Her daemon Parander loops himself around her waist, leaving her arms free to move, and she runs down the beach and into the cool water, flinging herself forward and throwing herself into the waves as they reach her middle.

The voice has told her what she must do, and she knows that she has the strength of body to do it.  But has she the will?  This she will find out, as she swims away from the shore, keeping the sun on her left hand side and waiting for the current to take her and carry her away.  From time to time she slows and lies on her back in the water, looking at the sky, watching the seagulls soar and dip over her head, living in her dream, inhabiting the world of her imagination.

_Now_, says the voice.  Now is the time – the time to make an end.  Elizabeth turns back onto her front and swims with powerful strokes, heading due west.  She will swim until she can swim no more; she will not turn back, nor look back, but go on for ever.

As she leaves the little bay the current pulls her away from the shore at an extraordinary speed, and she begins to feel a terrible fear.  The voice – did it speak wisdom or folly?  The truth, or lies?  And suddenly she begins to suffer doubts.  Perhaps this is all a consequence of her bout of overwork.  She is being incredibly stupid.  She has suffered a breakdown and she has been hearing things.  It is not too late; she can turn around and strike the shore at the next headland. If she swims as hard as she ever has, if she strives as she has never done before, she will be able to save herself and end this madness which has overtaken her.  She spits the salt water out of her mouth and, gritting her teeth, prepares to return to the world of the living.

It is a desperate struggle, this fight to regain the shore, and life.  Elizabeth can feel her joints cracking, and the ache in her muscles building up higher and higher, until she begins to fear that she has left it too late and that she will never be able to make it to safety.

Minute by agonised minute she battles the current and, in the end, it is by no more than a whisker that she, passing by the headland, catches hold of a protruding rock which would have been beyond her reach had the tide been at the flood, and hangs on to it, slowly recovering the strength to pull herself up onto it, and from there to another rock, and by careful degrees to the beach, where she collapses on the sand, retching and moaning.  A gentle wind stirs the branches of a tree which stands solitary on the low cliff above her, while Time ebbs and flows around her.

After a while, she has recovered considerably and stands up, looking for landmarks so she can get back to the beach from which she started and find her clothes, when she realises that she is not alone.  A small boy, no older than eight or nine, is sitting on the grassy slope above the beach and looking at her.

_He's only a little boy_, Elizabeth thinks and, not bothering to hide her nakedness, she calls out to him, 'Where am I?  I left my things down the shore a bit.'  Odd, though.  She thought that the whole village had attended Mass this morning, but she does not recognise this boy.  Perhaps his family live in another village, or maybe they are tinkers, travelling from place to place.

'Are you lost?' he shouts back to her.

'Yes, I am.'

'Don't worry.  I'll take you home.  Are you hungry?  I've got fish on the fire!'

Elizabeth is starving, and reaction is starting to set in after her narrow escape from death.  She is shivering, despite the warmth of the sun.

'I'm famished!  Is it far?'  Somebody in the boy's family will lend her something to wear, she is sure, and she will be able to use her wealth to reward their kindness with a generosity which will dazzle them.

'I'll need someone to take a message to the big house,' she says, walking beside the boy.  'They'll be concerned about me.'

'Don't worry,' he replies.  'Don't worry about that.'  Elizabeth decides not to worry.

They walk together along the shoreline for nearly a mile, and Elizabeth is beginning to wonder if the boy is playing a game to make fun of her, when he raises his arm and points.  'Look!  There it is!'  Oh yes; there is a thin column of smoke rising into the air, although its source is blocked from view by the sand dunes.  Climbing to the top of the slope, Elizabeth looks down and sees a cove, with a tiny beach; just large enough to hold a small clinker-built boat, a tar-paper and driftwood shack and a fire, on which two fish are cooking.

Elizabeth follows the boy down into the cove, stepping cautiously over the rocks, aware that her feet are unprotected.  'I say!' she calls out to him.  'Have you anything I can put on?'  There will be adults in the hut, no doubt.

'Sure!  Just wait there a moment, missus!'

It has been a long time since anyone has called her "missus", but Elizabeth is content to sit on a sun-warmed rock while the boy goes into the shelter, emerging a few moments later with a piece of blue cotton which turns out to be a man's shirt; old and worn and much too broad for her, but long enough to keep her decent.

'Now!' and the boy gives her a tin plate with a large piece of fish on it – sea bass, she suspects, with its skin charred by the fire. There is a potato cake with it, and an enamel cup full of clear water.  She sits down on the beach next to the boy and begins to eat.  Both the fish and the water are utterly delicious – perhaps the best she has ever tasted.  She wolfs them down and lies back, wriggling on the sand to make herself comfortable.  The boy sits companionably next to her, wiping his plate with his fingers and licking them.

'Where are your family?' she asks him.  He turns to her, and for the first time she looks at him properly.  It is hard to tell how old he is – he could be anything from six to twelve – his face is dark and his eyes deeply sunk, so that she cannot make out their colour.  He is wearing shorts and a ragged shirt and, like her, he is barefoot.

'It's just me here.'  He jumps up and smiles down to Elizabeth where she sits.  Why don't you stay a few days?  There's plenty of room in my house!  There's two beds.  Say you will, why don't you?'

Elizabeth cannot help but be warmed by the boy's offer.  It is sorely tempting, but there is a world beyond here, and she has obligations there.

'My people, my friends, they don't know where I am.  They'll be worried.  They'll miss me.'

'Don't you worry about that, missus.  I'll tell them where you are.  I'll let them know.'

'They're at the big house – Tir-na-nÓg.  Do you know it?  It's a mile or two south of here.'

'Of course, missus.  Now; you'll stay?'

_What the hell._  They will find her if they need to.  'Yes.  Thank you.  I'd love to stay.'

'Then, fáilte!  Welcome!  Come inside, and I'll show you where you can sleep.'

Sleep.  Yes, she would like to sleep.  Scarcely believing that she is doing this extraordinary thing, Elizabeth follows the boy into the warm darkness of the hut.


	7. The Boat

It is time to make an end.

_The Dingle Peninsula_

Adèle Starminster does not find it difficult to pick up Elizabeth's trail across Brytain and Eire. A person of Lady Boreal's wealth and status leaves ripples in her wake wherever she goes, and a journalist can readily follow them.

The train and ferry bookings, the hotel staff, and a little bit of inside information from within the Boreal Foundation, lead Adèle to the west coast of Eire, and Dingle, and a tiny village in the neighbourhood of the house of Tir-na-nÓg. She takes a room in a cottage in the hamlet, under the pretext of being on a walking holiday, and easily convinces her landlady of the truth of her story by setting out each morning loaded with a backpack, and wearing shorts and stout walking boots.

The backpack contains a pair of powerful binoculars, and Adèle keeps her quarry under close observation for several days, hiding in the hills which slope down from the east towards the sea. However, it soon becomes clear to her that there is no story here. What Elizabeth is doing is exactly what she expects her to do – she is taking life very easy, never going far from the house. There are no gentleman callers. The house seems to be run by a staff of two, a housekeeper and a cook, and the gardens are maintained by a man from the village who spends two afternoons a week pulling up weeds and digging flowerbeds.

When Sunday comes, Adèle is in two minds whether she should stay here any longer or go home. There is no point in trying to travel anywhere today as there are no buses or trains on a Sunday, so she attends Mass, taking a place near the back of the oratory and making sure that Elizabeth has no opportunity to see her face and identify her.

It is entirely by coincidence that Adèle, who sees no point in staking out the house merely to watch Lady Boreal and her household eat their Sunday dinner, decides to take a walk along the seashore and discovers a heap of abandoned clothes on the beach, where the shingle meets the sand.

_The Dingle Peninsula_

Elizabeth wakes the following morning and, for a moment or two, cannot work out where she is. It is dark inside the hut, for the sun, rising in the east, has yet to become visible above the slope of the dunes and the hills beyond.

She wriggles out from underneath the rough woollen blankets which cover her – there are no sheets – and tiptoes across the wooden floor of the hut, not wanting to disturb the boy who is still fast asleep in the bunk opposite. The door is a ragged piece of driftwood, hung on fabric hinges and secured by a simple catch which she fumbles in the half-light to undo.

The sky is clear, with the promise of a beautiful hot day to come and the open sea stretches out before her, where the little bay opens out. Elizabeth slips out of the old blue shirt, which has doubled as a nightgown and, chased by the seagulls which hover nearby looking for scraps, walks into the sea.

_I could swim for ever._

_No, that was yesterday, remember._

Yes, that was yesterday. Elizabeth paddles in the shallow water for a while, then spends a little time circling around the bay before returning to the beach. The sun is peeping over the dunes now, so she stands and lets it dry her, winding her hair around her fingers and squeezing as much water out of it as she can. The boy is standing by the door of the cabin when she returns.

'You've had a swim, then.'

'Yes.'

'Was it good?'

'It was fine.'

'That's grand! Look, I've made us some kaffee. In you come!'

She puts the shirt back on and follows the boy into the hut. Now that the sun has risen properly and there is light she can see that, although it is small and appears to have been constructed from the flotsam which is washed up all along the coast, everything there is well made, and neatly put together, and tidy, with everything stowed away in its own place. Her bunk, she sees, has been made up for her, and she thanks the boy.

'That's all right, missus. Now sit yourself down and have something to eat.'

As before, the food is simple – eggs, bacon, toasted bread, kaffee, milk and butter. As before, it is the best she has ever eaten and she accepts with pleasure the second, third and fourth helpings the boy offers her. At last, when they are full, but not uncomfortably so, the boy speaks.

'There's a fair wind today. We can go fishing. Will you come?'

Yes, she will come, and together they drag the boat over the sand to the water's edge, and the boy goes into the hut and returns with two baskets; one full of worms for bait and one containing fresh bread, a ham and a jar of water. He gets into the dinghy and Elizabeth passes him the baskets. Then she pushes hard on the transom, and the boat slides smoothly and rather too quickly into the water and she laughs and runs alongside it, jumping in and laughing again as it rocks from side to side, threatening to tip them both out.

The boy is not bothered in the slightest by their narrow escape from a soaking, but raises the sail and takes the tiller in his nut-brown hand. The boom swings out to the starboard side and they sit next to each other to port, balancing the pressure of the wind on the sail with the weight of their bodies and keeping the boat upright, the mast with its fluttering burgee flag at the head pointing straight up to the blue sky above them.

They take it in turns to sit at the tiller, one hand resting along it, the other holding the mainsheet and adjusting the angle of the boom to match the warm southerly wind and the course they wish to follow. Elizabeth is delighted to discover that she has not lost the knack of sailing a small boat. When the coast has receded to a green blur in the distance they heave to, take out their rods, and fish in silence, throwing their catches into a bucket which the boy has placed in the bows.

After a few hours the sun is at its zenith, but not oppressively hot, and they eat their simple lunch. Again, Elizabeth cannot believe how good it is – the bread has a crisp crust and firm-textured crumb, the ham is subtly spiced, the water seems to sparkle and fizz as if it has just come bubbling from the spring. She sits with her back against the mast, and gazes over the water, and wonders if heaven will be so full of delight as this glorious day.

Then the boy lets her steer them back to the shore, guiding her into the narrow cove which she would otherwise have missed, and they pull the boat back onto the beach and take their catch to the door of the cabin. The boy selects the two best fish for them to eat and tells her to take the bucket down to the sea and throw the others back.

Soon, the sun is hovering above the western horizon, blazing through pink clouds, and it is late evening. Elizabeth has insisted on cooking the fish herself – although she suspects that the boy attended to them as well, when she wasn't looking – and has also boiled up a bundle of herbs to make a dill sauce to go with them and, she cannot understand how this can be possible, they have eaten raspberry ice cream, freshly made with pieces of angelica in it, out of rough delft bowls.

The boy takes the plates and cups down to the water's edge and leaves them for the tide to scour. 'Won't they be washed away?' asks Elizabeth, but the boy tells her not to worry and, sure enough, there they are the following morning, bright and clean, lying on the sand and ready for them to use.

That day they go rambling in the hills, and the day after they take a long walk north and get home late, tired out but happy, and the next day they do nothing at all but laze about on the beach; and so the bright sunlit days and soft velvet nights pass, blissful and without count, until the morning comes when Elizabeth wakes, stretches, gets out of her bunk and, looking round the hut, notices to her surprise that the boy is not there. He is not outside the cabin either. Nor is the boat.

A deep melancholy wraps itself around Elizabeth's heart. It has ended, then, like all good things do, she tells herself. It was just the same when she was a child – there was always a day when you had to pack your suitcases, take your collection of shells from the windowsill and put them into a bag, where they would be crushed and lose their lustre, so that when you got back to London they looked as faded and sad as you felt.

There is bread and a pot of chai on the table. She sits and eats and drinks. The food tastes as good as ever, but she cannot enjoy it as she has these last few days, or however long it has been.

She puts the dishes in the usual place to be washed, folds up her blankets and places them on her bed, sweeps the hut out and, taking a final look around to make sure that it is as clean and tidy as she can make it, opens the door and steps outside, taking care to fasten the catch properly.

'Thank you,' she says, although there is no one but her to hear.

The house called Tir-na-nÓg is more or less due south of here, so she walks steadily in that direction. Her shoeless feet have hardened up, so she walks with equal ease over sand, shingle, rocks and grass until she reaches the beach from which she first set out. And there it is! The boat! The boy must have gone for an early sail and landed here. Perhaps he has gone to the house to tell everyone there where she is and then they will be able to go back to the cabin together and this wonderful holiday need not end just yet.

Calling out and waving her arms in the air, she runs along the beach, splashing through the water. 'Wait for me! Wait for me!' The small figure by the boat waves back to her. Breathing hard, she crashes into the side of the boat, laughing.

'Come on! Let's go sailing!' And then she realises…

It is not the boy who is standing by the boat, but a girl, eleven or twelve years old, slight of frame, with tawny hair tied behind her neck and a look in her light-blue eyes that Elizabeth cannot read. It is her sister Lyra, wearing a white cotton shift, in which she can see, glittering in the morning sunlight, threads of gold.

'Lizzie! At last! It's so good to see you.'

Lizzie looks in disbelief at the girl, and the boat and the sea and the clouds and the grey mountains of Kerry to the north-east and finally down at herself. She is dressed as Lyra is, all in shimmering white and gold, and she is a girl herself, maybe only a year or two older than her sister, with her hair held back with a black band. And there is more… With a terrible shock she realises that neither Lyra nor she are accompanied by their daemons. _When did Parander disappear? I haven't seen him for days. How could I not have known it? Why didn't I miss him? _ At last Lizzie realises what has happened to her. She leans against the side of the boat and dissolves into tears. Everything is undone. Her life is unravelling before her eyes, and she looks, horribly ashamed, at the pattern of its threads. She sees nothing but greed and lust, jealousy and hatred, and she despairs. Lyra comes to her then, puts her arms about her, and they embrace; as they did before all those years ago, when they first met and knew each other, in the headmistress' study in St Sophia's school in that Oxford which neither of them will ever see again.

'Oh Lyra, Lyra.' No longer the older sister, the wealthy and powerful woman of business, moving in the highest circles of society, having the ear of the King himself, she rests her head on Lyra's waiting shoulder and weeps – weeps for the love that they lost somewhere along the way.

'I have done such terrible things. What can I do now? Where can I go?'

'Come with me. You have a story to tell – your story. We all have stories, and we must tell them honestly, truthfully, or not at all.'

'How can I tell anyone _my_ story? It is so full of hate and anger. Who could bear to listen to it?'

'Don't be afraid, Lizzie. We have good friends where we are going. They will listen, and they will demand that you speak nothing but the truth to them, but they will not judge. And I will be with you. Lizzie, look at me.'

Lizzie does as she is told.

'I love you. We all do – Will and Judy, Peter, Arthur, Mary and the others in the worlds of life. We would not leave you now; we love you too much for that.

'Pantalaimon and Parander, Lee Scoresby and John Parry, King Iorek Byrnison – they are waiting for us. All our friends who have died before us are there.'

'And our parents? Are they there too?'

Lyra's face is briefly clouded with sorrow. 'Our mother and my father died, and fell into the Abyss, and were lost. No one will see them again, while the worlds endure. 

'But Lizzie – nothing is truly eternal and there is more than just Time ahead of us. One day the worlds will end, and the Abyss too, and then we may find them, in a place beyond the worlds; a place we can't imagine yet.

'And your father will be there now, and your uncle Henry too. Come on, Lizzie. Let's not wait any longer. We've so much to talk about and it's a lovely day for a sail!'

Together they push the boat across the beach and despite its weight it slips into the water with a soft sigh, as a lover greets her beloved's kiss. They climb into it and, taking the sheets and the tiller in their hands, navigate out of the broad sandy bay, past the green arms of the headlands which enfold it, and then, driven by a mild offshore wind, they leave the land behind and reach the open sea; that sea where we may not sail yet, until the time comes when it is ready for us, and we are ready for it.

Overhead the seagulls wheel and turn, and call out to one another all across the enchanted skies of that holy isle.

_Aquae Sulis_

Arthur has been lying in his bunk in the _Maggie_, covered in a golden shroud of Dust, eyes closed and lips moving occasionally, for almost two days when Harry, checking to make sure that he is comfortable, sees his partner's eyelids flicker and open. His daemon Sarastus leaves her place by his side and perches on the shelf above the bunk, where Harry's Mike joins her.

He helps the older man to sit up in bed, putting cushions behind his head, and brings him some water to drink. Harry feeds him bread and butter and, when the colour has returned to Arthur's cheeks, asks him the question which has been on his mind for the past forty-eight hours.

'Is everything well? Are they both all right?'

Arthur looks directly into Harry's eyes. Harry can feel his senses swim under the impact of his friend's indigo-blue gaze.

'Yes. Yes! Everything is fine.'

'You were able to help them?'

'They have forgiven each other, yes.'

'And – is it over?'

Arthur smiles. 'Yes. It is over; and they have made a good ending of it.'

* * * *

In a short while the _Maggie_ and the _Jimmy_ will slip their moorings and continue their journey east. They have a cargo of gravel to take from Bristol to London, and then there will be a load of coke for the kilns of the Burslem potteries; and after that there will be more goods to carry, and more work to do, and hard, useful lives for them to lead, navigating the rivers and canals of Brytain.

And in the end their work will all be done, and Arthur and Harry will set sail in a different boat, and make their landing on another, farther shore.


	8. Afterword

I'm whacked.

I never thought, when I wrote the words:

Will Parry stands on the concourse of Waterloo Station…

only a few months ago that I would find myself here:

…on another, farther shore.

more than 100,000 words later, nor that I would have got myself so emotionally involved with this story.

Philip Pullman has said that he always intended that HIS DARK MATERIALS should end in a garden. All the way through my fumblings and gropings through the plot of this tale as it developed I think I must have been steering, though I didn't realise it for a long time, towards a vision of a sunlit beach and a small boat, blue skies and a calm sea, and a farther shore. It's been one heck of a trip for me, from Waterloo Station to Aquae Sulis via heaven knows where. I've enjoyed the journey immensely, and I hope you've enjoyed it a little bit too.

* * * *

I won't name names, except for one special name, so thank you to everyone who has read this far and especially to my faithful reviewers on FF.NET. It has been a pleasure to log on and read your comments. Sometimes I have changed the way a story has gone because of what I read there (but I'm not going to say where, or when).

The special name is, of course, that of Jopari, who stood back and let me borrow his characters simply because I asked him if I might. His stories and mine have ended up interwoven, so that you could read them in order and, I hope, end up with a more-or-less coherent narrative. If you're tempted to try this, the correct (whatever that means) order is (Jopari's stories in CAPITALS, mine in _italics_):

THE HISTORY TUTOR (A Midsummer's Day prologue)  
THE RELIQUARY (Arthur Shire and Mrs Coulter)  
ARTHUR AND MAGGIE (Arthur goes to Bolvangar)  
_Intentions  
_THE ADVENTURE OF THE LOST ALETHIOMETER (Lyra meets Sherlock Holmes)  
_Threads  
The King's Councillor  
_AN EVER-ROLLING STREAM (Arthur and Adèle Starminster)  
_The Clockmaker's Boy  
The Queen of the Night  
A Gift of Love  
__Time and Peter Joyce_ (work in progress)  
_Jopari's Choice_ (unpublished)  
HIS DAY'S WORK (We say goodbye to Arthur)  
_Dearer Than Eyesight_

In the same spirit, I make this offer: If you would like to use any of my characters in your story, just ask me. If I think you'll treat them fairly I'll say yes. I'm well aware, for example, that there is still much more to say about the Ci'gazzeans and that I've given Judy Parry rather a raw deal.

That's all folks, except for the usual disclaimer – what's Philip Pullman's is his, and what's Jopari's is his, and the rest is mine and Copyright © Ceres Wunderkind 2002.

Farewell,

Ceres Wunderkind, July 2002 (www.geocities.com/ceres_wunderkind)


	9. Postword

_**The after-afterword**_

They say that a criminal always returns to the scene of the crime. I'm no criminal (at least, I hope not) but I do have a confession to make, and here it is:

In the immortal phrase I have been rather economical with the truth when it comes to my various _noms de plume_. Yes, that's in the plural. I have contributed stories to the HDM board on FF.NET under three different names - Jopari, Daisy and Ceres Wunderkind.

Jopari was the first name I used, and my first attempt at writing fan fiction or, indeed, fiction of any kind. I think the Jopari stories were always a little off-beam. They only ever appealed to a narrow readership and alienated many by (intentionally) not putting Philip Pullman's major characters in centre stage. As a result, they were reviewed less and less as I went along, until eventually nobody was (or so it seemed) paying any attention to them at all. 

My response was to write the two Daisy stories - _The Knife Of Destiny_ and _Lyra Goes On Holiday. _Oh my! What a torrent of invective fell on poor Daisy's head! So many expert, wise and worthy critics, so ready to put the boot into a writer! How dare Daisy be American! (I'm not) How dare she do what so many of her fiercest critics had not done! Write a story, that is, and publish it. Yes - I'm pointing at you, Corona.

If you were one of the reviewers who genuinely tried to help and guide and be kind to Daisy, please accept my apologies. If you were one of the stuck-up sods who was too stupid to Google for the name of Daisy Ashford and learn that she was originally the eight-year-old author of _The Young Visiters_, then shame on you! Learn to think before you post next time.

It was a fun prank, all the same, wasn't it?

Yes, I was Emma Ashford too and also Ceres Wunderkind, the voice of reason, and I decided that Ceres had better put her pen where her mouth was, so to speak, and do some writing of her own. The five stories I hope you have read were the outcome of that decision. When I look back at them now, I wince occasionally at some of the awkwardnesses of plot (I made the stories up as I went along) and the clumsy expressions that pop up from time to time (or more often than that, perhaps). But, all in all, I'm quietly proud of what I did and I think I have learned from the experience of writing these tales. Primarily, to write stuff that people actually want to read...

If I ever do write another story set in the HDM universe I may, or may not, use one of my existing pen-names. I may invent a new one, or quietly disappear. Until then, farewell,

Ceres Wunderkind, October 2002


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